Recently, Dusty “Leatherass” Schmidt outlined a high-stakes $1 million prop bet that pairs golf with poker. The competition consists of 72 holes of golf plus 10 heads-up poker matches. PokerNewsDaily.com sat down to talk with the young poker prodigy, who is also an instructor at the popular poker training site StoxPoker.
Poker News Daily: The most recent golf challenge we can remember concerned Full Tilt Poker pro Erick Lindgren playing four rounds of under 100 in one day during the 2007 World Series of Poker. What did you think of his prop bet and is he a candidate to take you on in your challenge?
Schmidt: Erick’s challenge was relative to his skill. My challenge is open to the entire world. There are not a lot of people who could potentially take me up on this. I don’t think that anyone from the poker community can expect to legitimately compete with me on this. On the golf side, there is no one who would have an edge on me heads-up in poker.
I assume that Erick and I are close in skill in heads-up poker. As far as golf goes, he shoots in the high 70s or low 80s. Even though that’s good, there is very little variance in golf. I probably have a 12 shot edge on him.
PND: Will short-term variance come into play over 72 holes of golf or 10 heads-up matches?
Schmidt: There is some short-term variance involved. If I were to play Tiger Woods at golf, I would expect him to win seven out of eight matches. The possibility could exist that he could be off his game and I could be on my game, so we’d be even. It’s unlikely, but it’s possible. If you take away Tiger Woods and put in an average PGA Tour player, his edge on me in golf is a shot and a half or two shots per 18 holes, which is one shot in nine. That’s the difference between a putt lipping in or out.
PND: Tell us how the idea for the challenge came about.
Schmidt: I was hanging out with Nick “stoxtrader” Grudzien. I had played some golf with him and we had a couple of drinks and started talking. We were wondering if there was a better golfer and poker player if we did a combined event. We started throwing out names, but there wasn’t anyone we could come up with. There wasn’t anyone who I felt I’d be in bad shape against. Even if Tiger were to take me up on it, he doesn’t play poker at all.
PND: Talk about your golf background.
Schmidt: At one point, I was on track to becoming someone who would expect to do well in golf and make it on the Tour. I broke some of Tiger Woods’ junior records. I went to college and didn’t have much success, so I turned to the Tour. I played for two or three years and struggled to get financial backing, but with the opportunities I had, it went well. I competed on the Golden State Tour and led that money list. However, my career was cut short when I had a heart attack at age 23.
PND: Talk about your poker background.
Schmidt: I started playing a few months after the heart attack. I had to spend a lot of time at home. I had a friend who played online poker who got me into it. Within six months, I became pretty good and that was about the same time that the money was running out for me. I decided to roll the dice and become a poker pro. I put the money I had left online, which was about $1,000, and was fortunately able to grind out those bonuses pretty hard. From there, I started developing a bit of a bankroll. I contacted Nick for some private coaching. We became great buddies because we both love golf and hit it off. I ended up switching from Limit Hold’em to No Limit Hold’em. Within four or five months, No Limit Hold’em felt natural to me and I became a StoxPoker coach.